Jeff Bezos's $150 Billion Fortune is a Policy Failure

[Beet]

The problem is the type of business he is in tends to foster natural monopoly, if left unchecked. The same was true, by the way, of Wal-Mart. Amazon musculing in on department stores isn't one company out-competing another. It's one industry replacing another. Okay. Nothing wrong with that. The fax machine is going out of date, too. But what is the nature of within-industry competition? What is Amazon doing within the online retailing space? They are engaging in anti-competitive behavior. That's the problem. Then you have to ask what the solution is. You either break it up, or regulate it as a monopoly.

https://www.thenation.com/article/amazon-doesnt-just-want-to-dominate-the-market-it-wants-to-become-the-market/

[Beet]

The problem is the type of business he is in tends to foster natural monopoly, if left unchecked. The same was true, by the way, of Wal-Mart. Amazon musculing in on department stores isn't one company out-competing another. It's one industry replacing another. Okay. Nothing wrong with that. The fax machine is going out of date, too. But what is the nature of within-industry competition? What is Amazon doing within the online retailing space? They are engaging in anti-competitive behavior. That's the problem. Then you have to ask what the solution is. You either break it up, or regulate it as a monopoly.

https://www.thenation.com/article/amazon-doesnt-just-want-to-dominate-the-market-it-wants-to-become-the-market/

Yes and no. The thing about retail is that it has a remarkably low barrier to entry, and not much about it is copywrightable. Sears was like Amazon a century ago, but they collapsed and were replaced without much of a fight. This isn't an industry Amazon can get a lock on and jack up the prices, because if they do, someone else can just sell the same products for less.

What they do is jack up the prices until someone tries to sell the same product for less. Then they jack down the prices until "someone" goes out of business. Then they jack it back up again. Once this happens a few times, prospective "someones" start to realize it's futile. Sure, to some extent, the same could have been said of Sears back in the day. From mom-and-pop stores to department stores, chains, supercenters, and now online market places, gradual consolidation has been the name of the game for retail for over 100 years. The trend is towards ever greater centralization. Thus, monopolistic practices will steadily grow in power.